"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎٢‎٥] (١٧٨٢/٢٦٨)

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Such amenities of life as were attainable were not neffleeted by the
Company s servants at Bandar'Abbas. They lived at a eommon table,
w ic > was snpphed at their employers' expense with Madeira and Persian
wine ; the latter cost about twenty-pence the bottle and was " the best"
says Ives " I ever tasted except claret." The Agency had a country
house and a pleasant garden at 'Ism, ten miles distant; and it was to this
place that a son and brother of Muhammad Taqi Khan, Governor of
Jars, invited themselves as guests at the beginning of 1730.
Public events of importance were duly celebrated by the British
community at Bandar 'Abbas. At the end of 1761 the Bombay Presi-
dency ordered the Agent and Council "to proclaim his most gracious
^ Majesty George the third, and enclosed them copy of the Form use'd
" on that occasion > ^nd ordered them to take the oath of Allegiance to
" him, and to administer both that and the oath of Fidelity to all the
Officers there, both Military and Marine.■'''
Full information regarding the Company's establishments in Turkish Staff, etc., in
Iraq is given in the historical chapter dealing with that country. ^ g rkish
The Company's civil establishments were never without their military Military es-
guards, whether at Bandar 'Abbas, Basrah or Rig. At the end of 1743 ta bli6hments.
the military at Bandar 'Abbas applied to be relieved, as they had served
there for more than two years ; and the Presidency apparently sent in their
place " a sergeant, drummer and twelve topasses, as a common watch,"
but declined to replace Ensign Mackenzie, who had died, on the ground
that the situation did not warrant the continuance of an Ensign's com
mand. In 1 744 the Agent and Council demurred to a reduction of their
guard "from the uncertainty of the times," and requested that an
Ensign and two or three Europeans for Corporals might be sent; the
rank and file were apparently Portuguese " Topasses," whose pay was
Rs. 4 a month,* and Indian sepoys. In 1747, the situation being some
what critical after the death of Nadir Shah, the Presidency sent the
Agent and Council at Bandar 'Abbas " two practical gunners with sundry
a stores and permitted them, if absolutely necessary, to detain half a score
"of men out of the "Drake," in order to defend their Factory against
"any rabble that might insult them." In 1748 two of the Agency
Topasses went out to the back of the town to fight, and one of them,
Francis Pereira, killed his adversary, Laurence de Romade, with a stick
and was sent as aprisonerto India. After 1750 the detachment at Bandar
'Abbas seems to have been generally an officer's command, and a guard-
* In 1751 the Topasses petitioned that their pay might be raised to Rs. 5 as at
Bombay.